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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

"The Messenger" by Algernon Blackwood

I recently came across this
overlooked short story of Blackwood’s and immediately realized that it read
much like a Lovecraft tale. Of course, any Lovecraft geek knows that Blackwood
was a strong influence on the younger author, so such a finding is not surprising.
Nonetheless, this little tale has gone unnoticed as a possible inspiration for
Lovecraft’s cosmic horror.

“The Messenger” is also very similar
to Guy de Maupassant’s “Le Horla,” which is a known influence of Lovecraft.
Both feature an otherworldly visitor. However, the messenger does not seem to be
as malicious as the Horla, though the story ends before we know for sure what
the messenger is here for. Also, the narrator of both tales could easily be
insane, the entire thing a delusion of a fevered mind.

Due to its short length, I will
reproduce the tale in its entirety below.

* * * * *

THE MESSENGER

by

Algernon Blackwood

(1912)

Illustration by W. Graham Robertson from the original publication

I HAVE never been afraid
of ghostly things, attracted rather with a curious live interest, though it is always
out of doors that strange Presences get nearest to me, and in Nature I have
encountered warnings, messages, presentiments, and the like, that, by way of
help or guidance, have later justified themselves. I have, therefore, welcomed
them. But in the little rooms of houses things of much value rarely come, for
the thick air chokes the wires, as it were, and distorts or mutilates the clear
delivery.

But the other night, here
in the carpenter's house, where my attic windows beckon to the mountains and
the woods, I woke with the uncomfortably strong suggestion that something was
on the way, and that I was not ready. It came along the by-ways of deep sleep.
I woke abruptly, alarmed before I was even properly awake. Something was
approaching with great swiftness and I was unprepared.

Across the lake there
were faint signs of colour behind the distant Alps, but terraces of mist still lay
grey above the vineyards, and the slim poplar, whose tip was level with my
face, no more than rustled in the wind of dawn. A shiver, not brought to me by
any wind, ran through my nerves, for I knew with a certainty no arguing could
lessen nor dispel that something from immensely far away was deliberately now
approaching me. The touch of wonder in advance of it was truly awful; its splendour,
size, and grandeur belonged to conditions I had surely never known. It came
through empty spaces from another world. While I lay asleep it had been already
on the way.

I stood there a moment,
seeking for some outward sign that might betray its nature. The last stars were
fading in the northern sky, and blue and dim lay the whole long line of the
Jura, cloaked beneath still slumbering forests. There was a rumbling of a distant
train. Now and then a dog barked in some outlying farm. The Night was up and
walking, though as yet she moved but slowly from the sky. Shadows still draped
the world. And the warning that had reached me first in sleep rushed through my
tingling nerves once more with a certainty not far removed from shock. Something
from another world was drawing every minute nearer, with a speed that made me
tremble and half-breathless. It would presently arrive. It would stand close
beside me and look straight into my face. Into these very eyes that searched the
mist and shadow for an outward sign it would gaze intimately with a Message brought
for me alone. But into these narrow walls it could only come with difficulty.
The message would be maimed. There still was time for preparation. And I hurried
into clothes and made my way downstairs and out into the open air.

Thus, at first, by climbing
fast, I kept ahead of it, and soon the village lay beneath me in its nest of shadow,
and the limestone ridges far above dropped nearer. But the awe and terrible
deep wonder did not go. Along these mountain paths, whose every inch was so
intimate that I could follow them even in the dark, this sense of breaking
grandeur clung to my footsteps, keeping close. Nothing upon the earth familiar,
friendly, well-known, little earth could have brought this sense that pressed
upon the edges of true reverence. It was the awareness that some speeding
messenger from spaces far, far beyond the world would presently stand close and
touch me, would gaze into my little human eyes, would leave its message as of
life or death, and then depart upon its fearful way again it was this that conveyed
the feeling of apprehension that went with me.

And instinctively, while
rising higher and higher, I chose the darkest and most sheltered way. I sought
the protection of the trees, and ran into the deepest vaults of the forest. The
moss was soaking wet beneath my feet, and the thousand tapering spires of the
pines dipped upwards into a sky already brightening with palest gold and
crimson. There was a whispering and a rustling overhead as the trees, who know
everything before it comes, announced to one another that the thing I sought to
hide from was already very, very near. Plunging deeper into the woods to hide,
this detail of sure knowledge followed me and laughed: that the speed of this
august arrival was one which made the greatest speed I ever dreamed of a mere
standing still. . . .

I hid myself where
possible in the darkness that was growing every minute more rare. The air was sharp
and exquisitely fresh. I heard birds calling. The low, wet branches kissed my
face and hair. A sense of glad relief came over me that I had left the closeness
of the little attic chamber, and that I should eventually meet this huge
New-comer in the wide, free spaces of the mountains. There must be room where I
could hold myself unmanacled to meet it. . . . The village lay far beneath me,
a patch of smoke and mist and soft red-brown roofs among the vineyards. And
then my gaze turned upwards, and through a rift in the close-wrought ceiling of
the trees I saw the clearness of the open sky. A strip of cloud ran through it,
carrying off the Night's last little dream . . . and down into my heart dropped
instantly that cold breath of awe I have known but once in life, when staring
through the stupendous mouth within the Milky Way that opening into the outer
spaces of eternal darkness, unlit by any single star, men call the Coal Hole.

The futility of escape
then took me bodily, and I renounced all further flight. From this speeding Messenger there was no
hiding possible. His splendid shoulders already brushed the sky. I heard the
rushing of his awful wings . . . yet in that deep, significant silence with
which light steps upon the clouds of morning.

And simultaneously I left
the woods behind me and stood upon a naked ridge of rock that all night long
had watched the stars.

Then terror passed away
like magic. Cool winds from the valleys bore me up. I heard the tinkling of a
thousand cowbells from pastures far below in a score of hidden valleys. The
cold departed, and with it every trace of little fears. My eyes seemed for an
instant blinded, and I knew that deep sense of joy which seems so “unearthly”
that it almost stains the sight with the veil of tears. The soul sank to her
knees in prayer and worship.

For the messenger from
another world had come. He stood beside me on that dizzy ledge. Warmth clothed
me, and I knew myself akin to deity. He stood there, gazing straight into my
little human eyes. He touched me everywhere. Above the distant Alps the sun
came up. His eye looked close into my own.

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